New User from Washington state!

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melissaruth

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Well, I've only been officially hearing impaired for 5 years now. As a kid, I had hearing issues and many many sets of tubes but the issues seemed to resolve themselves as I grew. However, just before getting pregnant with my first child, I had an episode where I could not hear. It went away but then as I had each of my children, my hearing got worse. I had boughts off and on where I couldn't hear but each time it would clear up and I would be alright until I had my 3rd child, at the age of 29, I could no longer understand what I was hearing. I could see the lips move but often not hear the voice or hear the voice but no longer understand what was being said.
For the last 5 years, hearing aids have been sufficient. However, just recently, I started battling two very severe ear infections. The doctor now believes that these ear infections will take whatever hearing I have left. My ears are currently swollen closed. It is quite painful. I cannot wear the hearing aids at all and my family does not know sign. It is quite a distressing time to be when you are in your mid-30s. I have no idea if my hearing aids will be sufficient once these ear infections are healed...they are not responding to antibiotics and vicodin, while it sometimes helps, is not helping as much as I wish it would.
I am finding I'm not willing to even go to social events anymore it is too exhausting to try to hear anyone. I had to take my oldest daughter to the ER today and I was completely useless-not being able to understand the doctor or nurse at all, I had to rely on my oldest daughter to fill me in when they left. ...I went home exhausted and slept the day away.
 
Welcome to Alldeaf and I'm also from Washington state too. :)
 
G'day melissaruth,
Welcome to AD. Hope you'll find what you're looking for at this forum. Sorry to hear you're losing your hearing and finding adjustment difficult.

We have some deaf people who are late deafened here.

Hang in there.

Cheers
 
Thank you!

Thank you for the kind welcome! I will be fine once I get over the pain of the dual ear infection. The swelling is excruciatingly painful and the Vicodin is making me sleepy and cranky....All this has proven is that I need to learn sign language and not put if off any more.
I had not realized how dependent upon the hearing aids I was until this week. Though I have fallen in love with what I read about these new Phonak Hearing Aids. Does anyone here have them? Currently, I wear a Siemens Accuris S.
 
melissaruth said:
Thank you for the kind welcome! I will be fine once I get over the pain of the dual ear infection. The swelling is excruciatingly painful and the Vicodin is making me sleepy and cranky....All this has proven is that I need to learn sign language and not put if off any more.
I had not realized how dependent upon the hearing aids I was until this week. Though I have fallen in love with what I read about these new Phonak Hearing Aids. Does anyone here have them? Currently, I wear a Siemens Accuris S.
Click to expand...

Which new Phonak aids? Naida? What you are wearing now is for mild loss.

The Naida is for people who do have hearing in the low frequencies. What you will get from infection, is scarring and obstructive loss. That would end up giving you a loss in the low frequencies and Naida is for sensorineural loss, and it puts speech down into the low frequencies, transposing from the highs.
 
Bottesini

I saw your post about the Phonak Naidas...I admit I only know what I saw on the website. I have nerve damage which is what is causing the initial hearing loss. And probably from quite a few ear infections as I was growing up (5 sets of tubes before I was 5) and then there's the fluid build up which makes it impossible to hear when it gets bad as well. I recently found out that my insurance will pay up to $1000 per ear for new hearing aids so I am seriously looking at buying a pair. My Siemens require maintenance yearly requiring me to shell out $500/year just for the maintenance. They are good but they seem to be lacking in a number of ways. A neckloop does not work well with them at all and the t-hooks are quite painful after wearing them for hours. Not to mention that when I wear the bluetooth I have, no one can hear me because the mic is much too far away from my mouth. I am in search of something that will work-preferably a hearing aid with a built-in mic and bluetooth as well as an option to actually hear music on my mp3 or in my computer.
 
:welcome: to AllDeaf forum. While you are having hearing issues involving ear infections, you might want to learn how to sign the ASL (American Sign Language). I am not familiar knowing where Richland in your area. There might be a sign language class where you can learn how to sign. Later in the near future, you might be interest in going to the Deaf social events so that you can communicate (sign) with them better than the hearing social. I used to live in Seattle, Washington for two years at the Seattle Central Community College which it had a Deaf program. I loved the community college there. As of right now, just have fun browsing and posting all the threads here. See you around here. :wave:
 
Yes, I am working on it. I go to a church that has a sign interpreter and I'm picking up a lot from her but mostly I get overwhelmed by how much there is to know...
That AND my husband doesn't get it and my kids don't want to learn so I'm not sure how much it will help me knowing it lol.
 
Bottesini said:
Which new Phonak aids? Naida? What you are wearing now is for mild loss.

The Naida is for people who do have hearing in the low frequencies. What you will get from infection, is scarring and obstructive loss. That would end up giving you a loss in the low frequencies and Naida is for sensorineural loss, and it puts speech down into the low frequencies, transposing from the highs.
Click to expand...

Question for you on these...How does that work? I'm not sure I like the fact that it won't really sound like their voice but..then again, not being able to hear their voice at all is annoying too...How do I explain my hearing loss in words? All I have are graphs...
 
If you need to explain to your husband and kids as well other people about the severity of your hearing loss. Simply explain what you cannot hear anymore such as their conversations on phone or something.

If you learn ASL, you could sign to your kids and they say 'I don't understand what you're saying'. You could say 'Well, now you know how I feel when I cannot understand what you're saying'.

Hope you'll get the handle of it by learning and asking questions.
 
I've had the Phonak aid on left side for a few months now and it is a fantastic aid. the neck loop works extremely well. I now have a CI in the right ear and am learning to hear with it. Just had my third tuneup yesterday and getting better all the time. Unfortunately the Phonak neck loop will not work with my CI so had to change to a sonic blue and different technology. Works but I like the Phonak better. At least I can now listen to music and phone with both ears. Finding that may not be as smart as I thought it was. Been using speaker phone for so long thought two better than one but now I'm beginning to wonder. Couple of my kids live in Kent and you are down in Tri-city area if I recall? Hope all goes well for you. Good luck
 
:welcome: to AD. :wave: I also am in Washington State, I am in Kent. I am so sorry for the difficulties that you have been having with your ears and your hearing. I really hope that everything gets better soon. If you ever need anything this is a great place to turn to if you need advice or even someone just to talk to .
 
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